I tore my ACL wakeboarding 4 years ago (I was 29 at the time). I tore it in June, had surgery July 21st, and skied the whole Vail mountain over New Years. As everyone said, do your PT. Mine had me doing excersises 5 times a day, so when the mid day times came, I laid down on the floor at work and did them. I got some strange looks.

I had the patellar tendon, which was supposed to be the strongest, and most painful. I luckily didn't tear any meniscus. My knee feels great and never bothers me. One of my buddy has issues with his hurting and getting fluid built up, but he tore a lot of cartilage.

I know an NFL lineman who had pretty much his whole knee blown out. They gave him the cadaver option, so maybe the patellar option isn't that much better? He did his the September after me, and is still playing. He's over 300 pounds and says his knee doesn't ever bother him, although he flew out to CO for his surgeries, so he probably had top notch.

A couple of other points to bring up:
1. If you wake up for surgery, and there's a tube coming out of your knee for a drain, there's a lot more hose inside your knee than you'd ever think possible, and it hurts like hell when they pull it out.
2. When the time comes to return to sports, CTI braces were the best option (at least when I looked 4 years ago) for water sports.
3. There's a new procedure called the double bundle that's supposed to be the new greatest ACL reconstruction. I think it's supposed to better replicate the original ligament. I don't know much about it or how strong it is or recovery time, but might be worth at least investigating.
4. I wore my brace for everything originally, but after the first year, I only wear it snow skiing and wakeboarding now. It never bothered my snow skiing, wakeboarding, or basketball, but it would rub my other knee when slalom skiing.